Apparently his masters thesis was on graphing the shape of stories. The graphs in this piece are an example of what his maters thesis was talking about, applied to different familiar archtypes.

Just because the image doesn't say it clearly but is interesting - Vonnegut was an atheist and liked the story of Christianity as a terrific redemption story but believed it to be fictional. I am curious if his rejected thesis was outlining Christianity as the basis of classic storytelling.

It's interesting but I think the "shape" of the Christian story is poorly outlined. It's a shallow understanding of the actual story arc. I mean, the "Old Testament" story arc in that graphic gets you through, what, two pages? The "New Testament" adds a pretty vague ending to that as well.

The OT is clearly the creation story. As far as a shallow portrayal-isn't that kind of the point?

I mean there are tons of mini up and downs characters go through along their arcs in the other stories as well.

I disagree. A westerner reading it sees it that way maybe. I don't think the contemporary people would have seen it in that light. This is like literary apophenia.

To be fair, the graphs are not Kurt's. They are examples of how to apply his process.

As for the OT, the graph just shows Genesis through the fall of man. That's not really the OT, is it? Poor job, I agree.

I'm with you.

I think there's something profound when we see all of the tropes of human mythology as a dialogue with each other, and therefore with something real in human experience.

When you put them all together I think it somehow diminishes them to pull pieces out as tropes and imply that somehow that's all the meaning there is. Tropes diminish the depth of meaning, they're somehow dismissive.